In this era, it’s not necessary for a business to have its own development team. Instead, you have a variety of options if you need an IT expert for your problems. If your company is planning to open a new ODC, make sure you learn carefully about these offshore development center best practices in this article.

Choose a partner/ Recruit carefully

First and foremost, you must choose the right partner in the country where your ODC is located. By working with a successful offshore development vendor, you will save a lot of time and money. So how to find the right partner? You need to explore all vendors and then evaluate your options. 

Your partner should be the one who understands your needs. It’s best if they have experience in the industry and more importantly, they have a talented team who update the latest technology. 

Always stay in the loop

One of the most important offshore development center best practices is staying in the loop. That means you can not just let your partner work independently. Instead, you must keep an eye on your project. If possible, try to collaborate with your vendor so you can work together on this offshore project. 

Besides, it’s also important to update the process of your project from time to time, so that you understand all the issues or avoid all concerns. If you are too busy to work with your vendor, just assign your staff to deal with it.

Clear about your expectations

You need to make it clear about what you expect in the ODC. It’s easier for your project to meet your expectations if you know exactly what you want from it. Also, it’s common to have a mismatch in expectations when you work with other people. That’s why everything should be clear, from user experience, quality and security. 

To do that, you should write down your plan in detail, make sure your offshore development center knows and understand your expectations, and deliver them quickly. 

Agree on ownership of application architecture

It might be disempowering if two teams dictate application architecture. For example, if your offshore team can not make any crucial decision, then they might feel like their ownership is lower. 

As a result, they also less engage in your project. That’s why you must agree on this ownership before looking into opening an offshore development center in other countries. Once it’s done, you just need to enjoy an efficient process and high quality software performance.

Employ a good management model

This model allows you to offshore all your development work, so you can spend your precious time on your business. Not to mention, you will be able to save the operating cost during the initial development stage. As soon as your project starts to bring in sufficient revenue, the transfer can begin.

Account for time zones

As the offshore development center is in different locations, you will work at several time zones. Of course there will be overlapping working hours everyday. So you need to make sure that you will work in those hours. 

During the overlapping working time, you should make sure that all important decisions, meetings are taken and you resolve all the issues within budget. Keep in mind that you might need to adapt your workflow to accommodate an overlap in time.

Encourage shared values

Obviously your ODC team will have different working styles, values and even professional etiquettes, so you might face a few challenges while working with the offshore teams. With that said, you might feel frustrated with a completely different working style. 

To avoid this issue, when looking for a country to open your ODC, you should choose one that has a similar culture, or at least the offshore employees have a similar approach to work. And the most important thing is to encourage your teams to collaborate with each other, and work together for the same goals.

Communicate frequently

Communication is the key in any relationship. If you want your onshore and offshore teams to understand each other and work toward the company’s goals, you should let them communicate frequently, for example, at least once a week.  Companies should also create social activities or team building to build a relationship between two teams.

Develop a small but efficient team

Your offshore development center team should be a small team with experienced and skilled developers. Once your ODC expands, you can split it into different small teams and choose a team lead for each of them so that all the teams can focus on the development process.

So you have learned about the offshore development center best practices, make sure you make your team feel encouraged and motivated in their job. That means you can improve productivity and effectiveness of your offshore team. Contact Omatech if you need more information or any support!